What Can I Do? – The Fast Track to Social Change

Most people would like to see social changes happen. It could be in terms of racial equality, religious tolerance, global warming, or whatever. A lot of people also know how to fix these problems and are very willing to tell you how it needs done. Take racial (black/white) equality, for example. There is a group of people that will tell you that the real problem is that black people have an extremely high rate of single parent families, a high dropout rate, and a large percentage of the male population has a criminal record. The solution, then, is for black people to stop having children out of wedlock, to graduate from high school instead of dropping out, and to stop committing crimes. Then the situation will get better.

Another group has a different take on the situation. They say that racism is still rampant in the country, schools in black dominated neighborhoods are substandard, black men are in prison because of racial profiling. The solution, then, is for America to stop being racist, for the government to stop underfunding schools in black neighborhoods, and for the police to stop racial profiling. Then the situation will get better.

Each of these positions suffers from the same problem – they want somebody else to take the action for solving the problem. Lay the blame on someone else and take no responsibility. And when nobody takes any responsibility, nothing gets done, and nothing gets better. Amazingly, this seems to be the preferred solution for making changes!! Many people agree that the war in Iraq is not going so well. Ask a Democrat about it and he is likely to say, “The Republican plan was flawed and Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction.” Ask a Republican and he’s liable to say, “The Democrats want to cut and run.” But nobody ever offers to actually do anything. Talk radio and cable news shows have perfected this. It’s all complaining and no action.

The real key to social change is not telling someone else what they should be doing, but asking the question, “What can I do?” Instead of complaining about the high minority dropout rate, offer to mentor and tutor a minority student. Don’t just complain about bad schools, start a program to help kids graduate on the idea that it’s better to graduate from a bad school than to not graduate from one.

Sometimes social change can only happen when a single person raises the consciousness of a large group. The problem is that everyone wants to be the next Dr. King. Unfortunately, these people only come along once in a generation. And guess what? You’re not the one!! Of course we can point out improvement areas outside of our area of influence, but if we would spend most of our time doing what we can do, we would get a lot more changes accomplished.

Test it on your own problems. Think back and see where you made the most impact – by letting other people know what they should be doing or by actually doing something yourself.